I can't get no Satisfaction

Jeremy was an extremely smart young man. He was born with exceptional intelligence and the personal drive to go along with it. Once Jeremy finished college and was in the work force, he began to realize that he could use his intelligence to his advantage. Jeremy was so driven to be successful, that it really never bothered him if he hurt anyone on the way to his next promotion.

On his journey to the top, Jeremy said and did just about anything in order for a situation to look favorable for him. Failure was not an option for Jeremy. He was not willing to learn from his mistakes, because in his mind he had none. It was always that everyone else was too stupid to understand his point and therefore they needed to be fired. Finally, after fifteen years of stepping over (not around) anyone in his path, he became the CEO of a mid-size financial company.

Jeremy deceived and lied to many people. Some of his deception was harmless, yet some would be considered mind-boggling to anyone with a fraction of any ethical standard. None the less, Jeremy's drive, willingness to do/say anything and his intellect, eventually got him to the top.

Every night Jeremy would come home and tell his wife a story about how he had manipulated a certain situation in his favor and that everyone was too stupid to realize how he had "played them". He might not always had put it in those exact terms, but he would angle the story to his benefit. Heck, he even had his own wife fooled.

Even though he had stepped over many people to become CEO, he had done it so cleverly and so insidious that few people (who were still in the company) had ever caught on. Jeremy's mistake was that he loved himself and his ambitions above everything else. He had always thirsted for more. Sadly, he died of a heart attack at the age of 57 after walking out of a business meeting. At his funeral one of his colleagues said this...

"I remember Jeremy as a shiny red corvette. Yeah, he was like a fast car that never slowed down. He never took his eyes off the speedometer. Because if he had, if he had looked up, he would have seen the many road signs warning him to SLOW DOWN, STOP or YIELD. But that wasn't in his nature. Because when Jeremy put his eye on the prize, he went after it with every ounce of his being. And I don't think that he ever had a chance to sit back and enjoy everything that he had...everything that he was given."

* * *

Let's be clear about one thing in this story. God is the sole provider of everything that we have. Our home, car, job, money, stature, health, relationships - everything. Out of love, these things are given to us because He wants us to find joy and in turn glorify Him for these wonderful gifts.

However, Jeremy loved himself more than anyone or anything. He loved the feeling of success. He loved being on top of the world and yet he was never satisfied and was always on the lookout for his next conquest. And at the age of 57 his world came to a sudden halt.

Whoever loves money never has money enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.
This too is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 (NIV)

We can learn a valuable lesson from Jeremy. We too should never be satisfied. We should never be satisfied in our relationship with God. We should never be satisfied with how much we give back to Him. We should never be satisfied with the amount of love or compassion that we show our family or friends. All of us have daily struggles with temptations and many times we may not even realize that we're in the Devil's cross hairs...but rest assured we are.

Don't give the Enemy the satisfaction of pulling us away from our daily duties to glorify God. And before we rest our heads on that pillow tonight, let's give ourselves the satisfaction of knowing that we did everything we possibly could to please God today.

And finally, I am satisfied with this post and will close it here. :)

God bless you. And this is for His Glory!

When the game is on the line

There is a common sports analogy that goes something like this…

“Big players,
make big plays,
in big games.”

Essentially, this means that great players step up when the game is on the line and somehow (presumably through their skill or athleticism) turn the game into their teams’ favor.

Translating this into Christianity…

For many of us, when we tend to think about Jesus the first thing that comes to mind is His death on the cross. But what about all those other times that He stepped up and came through? As a matter of fact, can you think of a time when Jesus did not “make a big play?”

*Every time someone was sick or impaired…He showed compassion and healed them.

*Every time someone attempted to trick Him..He got the better of them and they left Him alone.

*Every time His flock was hungry...He fed them.

*Every time He was asked to dispel a demon…He removed it in the name of Almighty God.

*Every time He told a parable…it was done in order to help us understand.

*Every time He spoke…people listened.

*Every time He prayed…God heard him.

*Every time someone doubted Him…He proved them wrong.

*Every time we sin against Him…He has the power to absolve us.

Over 2,000 years ago, when “the game” was on the line, Jesus stepped up and made a “big play”. He sacrificed Himself for all of us. He suffered, was crucified and died so that our sins would be forgiven.

“Big players,
make big plays,
in big games.”

No one has ever had more responsibility placed on their shoulders than Jesus Christ did when He walked the earth. Once he gathered His apostles, He showed up every single day to teach the word of God and to turn sinners toward the path of righteousness.

Jesus gave us 100% then, and He gives us 100% now.

Can we say the same?

For us, it's a much more serious matter than winning or losing a game. It's a matter of eternal life or eternal suffering.

Think about it.

God bless you. And this if for His Glory!

Tough Love

Many years ago there was a woman who was extremely distraught over her sons behavior. Eventually, she went to visit her priest to ask him if he would talk to her son. The priest agreed and met her son a week later. During the meeting the young man (let's call him Robbie) was the most obnoxious, rude, disrespectful, and arrogant person the priest had ever met.

The priest absolutely could not get through to him at all. Eventually, Robbie got up to leave and right before he got to the door the priest said, "Do you mind if I pray for you?" Robbie turned around, gave a shrug and said, "Yeah, whatever."

The priest then said..."I'm going to pray that God takes you by the throat, lifts you up and crushes you for your sins." Robbie hesitated for a second, mumbled a few words and then left.

About one week later Robbie was in a terrible car accident and was basically placed a full body cast in the hospital. The priest walked into his room, saw the boy laying in bed and grinned widely. The boy did not smile back. Every day or two the priest returned to visit and it took Robbie several months to get through his rehab. The injuries were serious, but they were not physically life altering.

During numerous visits and watching Robbie go through countless rehab sessions, the priest noticed that Robbie's spirit had changed. The boy had evolved into one of the humblest individuals that the priest had ever known. Robbie's near death experience had changed his entire outlook on life and he became close to Jesus.

* * *

I want to go back to a point in the story where the priest said..."I'm going to pray that God takes you by the throat, lifts you up and crushes you for your sins."

After that first meeting the priest did pray for Robbie. He prayed that the Lord humble the boy in order to bring him closer to Jesus.

It's only through trials and tribulations that we find ourselves seeking and moving closer to God. God gives us these burdens to bear because He loves us. Trials, tribulations and hardships are invisible blessings from above and it's in these times that we draw closer to God and really find out how dependent we are upon him.

* * *

The story above is TRUE and I believe there are at least three points that standout:

1) It's okay to pray that God humble someone who has grossly strayed off the path. God will decide the appropriate action to take...we don't need to be specific. But, this should only be done out of love, not out of malicious intent.

2) The cross that we bare in life can be heavy at times, but God will never give us more than we can handle. He does this to remind us that we need Him more than anything else in the world.

3) Sometimes we just need a good kick in the (you know where) as a wake up call to remind us why were are here.


Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

1Peter5:6


God bless you. And this if for His Glory!

Your Favorite Sin

The beginning a new year is always a good time to reflect upon all the blessings that we had over the past year and to look forward to what's to come. Most of us find ourselves making a new year resolution. This typically leads to giving up something for the betterment of our physical, mental or spiritual health.

If you are contemplating the idea of a "resolution", then consider your favorite sin. Everyone has one. It's that one sin that we keep repeating over and over again. It's that one sin that if we were to go to confession or ask for forgiveness on a weekly basis, it would be on our list every single time.

Of course, I'm being facetious when I say "Favorite Sin". It's more like least favorite (being the repeat offender that it is). Mine is selfishness...and I struggle with it daily.

So, I challenge you to work from "the top down" to reduce and eventually eliminate your favorite sin this year. Put it in your cross hairs, make it a priority and by God's grace all the other loose ends in your life will start to fall into place as well.

¹⁵ This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.

¹⁶ But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.

1 Timothy 15-16

Happy New Year.

God bless you. And this is for His Glory!

Put down that stone

We've all made mistakes and have done things that we end up regretting. It's not as important as to what specifically the mistake was (because we can't undo it), it's more about how we bounce back after we acknowledge the mistake and ask for forgiveness. Essentially, it's understanding how to apply the principle of "Lessons Learned" in order to not become a repeat offender.

True Story:
Several years ago a woman was driving in her car. Without warning her windshield exploded and something very hard hit her square in the face. The woman (I'll call her Deb), ended up undergoing facial reconstruction surgery. Deb was hit by a frozen turkey that was thrown from the rear window of a speeding car by a teenage college student out for a joyride with friends.

The teenager was indicted on a first-degree assault charge and could have faced up to 25 years in prison. And then Deb stepped in. She saw the young man for the first time coming out of the courtroom. He stopped, choking and crying as he tried to apologize to her.

For an intensely emotional few minutes, Deb embraced him tightly, stroked his face and patted his back as he sobbed uncontrollably. The young man kept saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," the woman he could have killed repeated, "It's OK. It's OK. I just want you to make your life the best it can be."

Then, at Deb's insistence, prosecutors agreed to a plea bargain for the young man, giving him six months in jail and five years' probation instead of 25 years in prison. One man later said that in his 30 years as a prosecutor "he had not seen such a forgiving victim."

* * *

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ²At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" ⁶They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." ⁸Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

⁹At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

¹¹"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

John 8:1-11

Final Thoughts:

Many times in life we instinctively pick up that stone in preparation to declare judgment on another persons actions. One thing we must remember is that God wants us to soften our hearts and provide love and encouragement to one another. We are blessed that our Lord allows us to redeem ourselves and is a God of second chances.

There is not a righteous man on earth
who does what is right and never sins.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

So the next time someone makes a mistake...instead of pointing a finger at them, offer them guidance and support out of compassion for their mistake. Because one day we all will stand before the final judge and will be held accountable for all of our actions.

God bless you. And this if for His Glory!